LT-2019-003 Jazz in the Valley - Laserfiche WebLink

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Jazz in the Valley Additional Information Exhibit E Jazz in the Valley was the brainchild of Larry Sharpe after a reunion of graduates of CWU's Jazz program who performed a free concert at the fairgrounds during the summer of 1997. Larry had been involved with the formation and development Laughing Horse Summer Theatre, which, in collaboration with CWU, provided repertory theatre during summers in Ellensburg for 15 years. When it went dark in 1997, Larry bemoaned the fact that there was nothing happening during summers in Ellensburg except the Rodeo at the end of August each year. After the jazz concert, the idea started percolating that with our connection to these artists who were now professionals throughout the Pacific Northwest we could put on a jazz festival. He contacted past board members of Laughing Horse Theatre and other community minded people for a meeting to discuss the viability of this idea in April of 1998. One of the major discussions is how we were going to raise money to put it on. The group decided to approach the Laughing Horse board to see what would be involved in using their 501-C3 status. This sparked a community wide discussion that eventually led to the formation of the Laughing Horse Arts Foundation, which serves as an umbrella organization for a number of organizations throughout the county that are involved in the performing arts. We put on our first Jazz Festival at the end of July that year. From the very beginning , our goal was to entice visitors to visit our downtown community during the summer. This was a "down" time for businesses because most CWU students were not in residence. We fostered this emersion by using several local businesses as music venues for the event. We actually made money that year and realized we were on to something good for the community. Over the years, we expanded our offerings from Friday and Saturday including Sunday and increased our venues from five to ten, which stayed that way until last year. Through the course of our development, we have expanded our mission to include a close cooperation with CWU's jazz program and a dedication to the promotion and development of jazz education. During the first four years of the festival , we developed a "Paint to Jazz" program for the Ellensburg School district. This program conducted educational presentations on the history of Jazz and its evolution and promoted artistic expression of jazz through creative paintings. We exhibited these paintings for many years during the Festival along the perimeter fencing at the Rotary Pavilion Main Stage. From 2006-2016 our educational outreach program has also worked with Central Washington Jazz Studies to sponsor a variety of music clinics for college and high school students with professional Jazz musicians. Most of these encounters have involved the following: